Tag: Diane Ravitch

Why is the media—including the liberal media—supporting these teachers’ strikes?

I’ve been amazed—in a good way—at how positive is the media coverage of all these teacher wildcat strikes and actions in West Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Arizona. Particularly from liberal media outlets. I say this because it was just six years ago that the teachers in Chicago struck. Even though their cause was just as righteous as that of the teachers in these southern states, featuring many of the same grievances you see in the current moment—the Chicago teachers’ final contract included a guarantee of textbooks for all students on the first day of class; a doubling of funds for class supplies; $1.5 million for new special education teachers; and so on—the hostility from media outlets, including liberal media outlets, […]

Wendy Kopp, Princeton Tory

Going through some old files, I found copies of the Princeton Tory, which was Princeton University’s right-wing undergraduate magazine in the 1980s. Today it bills itself as “a journal of conservative and moderate political thought.” Back in the day, the Tory ran articles in praise of abstinence and against the campus divestment movement (“Although Jerry Falwell’s claim that [Archbishop Desmond] Tutu is a ‘phony’ is exaggerated, it is true that he has little support within South Africa. The image of Tutu as a prominent figure is a creation of the international community”). It staged reenactments of Washington’s crossing of the Delaware. Nothing outlandish or outré; just a slightly fustier version of the campus right of the 1980s. Most of the staffers […]

Why Do People Hate Teachers Unions? Because They Hate Teachers.

Like Doug Henwood, I’ve spent the last few days trying to figure out why people—particularly liberals and pseudo-liberals in the chattering classes—hate teachers unions. One could of course take these people at their word—they care about the kids, they worry that strikes hurt the kids, and so on—but since we never hear a peep out of them about the fact that students have to swelter through 98-degree weather in jam-packed classes without air conditioning, I’m not so inclined. Forgive me then if I essay an admittedly more impressionistic analysis drawn from my own experience. Like many of these journalists, I hail from an upper middle class background. I grew up in Chappaqua, an affluent suburb of New York. My parents moved […]

Making Love to Lana Turner on an Empty Stomach (and Other Things That Caught My Eye)

In my first year of grad school, I read Naming Names, Victor Navasky’s study of the blacklist in Hollywood. That, and Michael Rogin’s The Intellectuals and McCarthy, made me a permanent junkie for all things McCarthy. The blacklist was a shameful episode in American history, but it had its bright spots.  One of them was Kirk Douglas, who helped break it by insisting that the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo receive the screenwriting credit for Spartacus.  The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is now honoring the 94-year-old Douglas with its Freedom of Expression Award. Douglas discusses his experiences with Spartacus—as well as being Jewish in Hollywood—here.  Best quote from Douglas: “I always fasted on Yom Kippur. I still worked on the movie […]